Eastern Wyoming Paleoindian site confirmed as Americas’ oldest mine

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (PRESS RELEASE) – Archaeological excavations led by Wyoming’s state archaeologist and involving College of Wyoming researchers have confirmed that an historic mine in jap Wyoming was utilized by people to provide purple ocher beginning practically 13,000 years in the past.

That makes the Powars II web site at Dawn in Platte County the oldest documented purple ocher mine — and sure the oldest recognized mine of any kind — in all of North and South America. The excavations, accomplished shortly earlier than the 2020 dying of famed UW archaeologist George Frison, confirmed theories he superior stemming from analysis he started on the web site in 1986.

The findings seem in “In situ proof for Paleoindian hematite quarrying on the Powars II web site (48PL330), Wyoming,” a paper revealed Could 12 within the Proceedings of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences (PNAS), one of many world’s most prestigious multidisciplinary scientific journals masking the organic, bodily and social sciences.

The paper’s lead creator is Wyoming State Archaeologist Spencer Pelton, who grew to become concerned within the Powars II mission in 2016 when he was a UW doctoral pupil.

“Now we have unequivocal proof to be used of this web site by early Paleoindians so long as 12,840 years in the past and persevering with by early Individuals for about 1,000 years,” Pelton says. “It’s gratifying that we have been lastly in a position to verify the importance of the Powars II web site after many years of labor by so many, together with Dr. Frison, who discovered of the location within the early Eighties and was concerned within the analysis till his dying.”

In reality, Frison — who died in September 2020 as the one UW school member ever elected to the distinguished Nationwide Academy of Sciences — is listed as a co-author of the brand new paper. Different contributors have been George Zeimens, govt director of the Dawn Historic and Prehistoric Preservation Society; Erin Kelley, a UW graduate and Workplace of the Wyoming State Archaeologist employees member; and UW Ph.D. college students Sarah Allaun, Alexander Craib, Chase Mahan and Charles Koenig.

Pink ocher, also called hematite, fulfilled a variety of features in Paleoindian societies, together with as a pigment in rituals. It has been discovered at historic graves, caches, campsites and kill websites within the Nice Plains, the Rocky Mountains and past. The Powars II web site is the one purple ocher quarry recognized within the North American archaeological file north of southern Mexico — and one in all solely 5 such quarries recognized in all the Americas.

This whole Clovis level was recovered from the Powars II web site. (Spencer Pelton Photograph)

Among the many artifacts beforehand found on the Powars II web site are Clovis factors — believed to be from the primary inhabitants of North America — together with different projectile factors, instruments and shell beads.

The 2017-2020 excavation led by Pelton — a 6- by 1-meter trench bisecting a beforehand undocumented quarry characteristic — yielded a number of thousand extra Paleoindian artifacts, together with many well-preserved animal bones and antlers. The animal bones and antlers have been used to extract the purple ocher within the quarry.

The projectile factors come from quite a few places within the area, together with from as far-off because the Edwards Plateau in Texas, in line with the paper. That makes it doubtless that purple ocher discovered at archaeological websites all through the American midcontinent got here from the Powars II quarry.

“Past its standing as a quarry, the Powars II artifact assemblage is itself one of many densest and most various of any up to now found within the early Paleoindian file of the Americas,” Pelton says. “The positioning incorporates over 30 chipped stone instruments per sq. meter, among the oldest canid stays from an American archaeological web site and uncommon or distinctive artifacts, amongst different distinctions.”

The researchers say the proof found up to now signifies the quarry was utilized in two main durations. Through the first, courting to so long as 12,840 years in the past and lasting a number of hundred years, individuals not solely quarried purple ocher — utilizing bones and antlers as instruments — but additionally produced and repaired weapons, together with different actions. After a hiatus of a century or extra, the location was occupied by people who mined purple ocher and deposited artifacts in piles in a quarry pit.

“Additional excavation of the estimated 800-square-meter the rest of the location will definitely reveal complexity not captured by our pattern,” the researchers wrote.

Pelton nominated the Powars II web site to the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations in 2021.

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